To Win Without Peril
by Yami Flo
Summary: He won. Glory should come to him naturally. But then why… why does everything seem to instead taste like a defeat?


Character(s)/Pairing(s): Shuten

Warnings: Death, blood, violence

Summary: He won. Glory should come to him naturally. But then why… why does everything seem to instead taste like a defeat?

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**To Win Without Peril**

"_To win without peril is to triumph without glory." __Corneille_

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The caws of the ravens fill the sky.

Twilight colors everything in shade of red and black, colors of blood and colors of night, black shadows spreading everywhere as the setting sun slowly comes down beyond the horizon. The cold of the night is getting closer and closer by the minute. The wind, fresh and strong, just keep spreading the fragrance of fresh blood and dead flesh.

It's the fragrance of dead, the fragrance of the battlefields.

The air has gotten even closer.

But the man who stands alone and victorious on the edge of the field doesn't feel the cold. He feels hot, so hot.

Under the weight of his helmet, sweat runs down his neck, drenching his long red hairs and making them stick to his face. Usually, he would have considered the feeling unpleasant.

Right now, however, he couldn't care less.

At his feet lie the bodies of his foes, lifeless, staring at the sky with unseeing eyes. He made them fall under his blows just as easily as a child would have crushed an insect in his hand.

Logically, he should feel happy.

He has won. Glory belongs to him, for he lost no duel today, and never was he injured by any of his opponents, not even once. He received not cut from enemy swords, nor was he hit by flying arrows. A single blow from his new weapon, this kusari-gama coming with his new armor, downed dozens of soldiers at time.

He took so many lives today with that scythe that one could almost call him the Grim Reaper, he reaped lives just as easily as a peasant reap wheat in the fields.

He can only watch around him, feelings caught in a mix of satisfaction and barely disguised surprise.

A body-less head at his feet seems to keep watching him with its glazed eyes, expression echoing his own surprise.

Countless limbs ripped from their owners lie everywhere around him, blood slowly seeping into the ground.

He had felt power, true, limitless power during that battle. He can almost taste it again.

The yoroi Arago-sama has given to him is more powerful than he had dreamt.

He feels like a God, almost, powerful and unforgiving and ready to be worshipped by the crowds. Such a powerful armor, and its power is his and his alone to use…

What warrior wouldn't kill for such a chance at greatness?

He had been a simple samurai, an anonymous warrior among others in the ever shifting crowd of fighter gathering under the banner of one of Japan's many Warlords.

Now… now he alone should be called a Warlord, for whole armies were just ants he was ready to squash under his armored foot.

He's strong. he's respected by those Youja his new Master has given him to command to. Whole legions just wait for one word, one move of his part to march on and attack, all for the glory of Arago, who has given him power beyond his imagination.

He's a General, and nothing could make him prouder.

Oh, Arago has other young men under his orders he also call 'Generals'. Together, they're his Masho. But he knows he's worth twenty of them already. They don't count. He, Shuten Douji, is the only one who can handle the title and has truly earned it. He's the one who won countless victories, like the one of today.

No, nothing could made his pride greater.

And still…

Still…

Now that the rush of adrenaline is dying down, now that the excitation bought by the fight is dropping, he can't stop a feeling of emptiness to seize him.

Somewhere, he finds today battle… disappointing.

No, even worse.

As he ponders about it, he's coming to the conclusion that today's battle was only a battle in name. It was more like a massacre, with lambs being led to the slaughter.

He met no real resistance, or what he considered resistance at any rate. No adversary who dueled with him showed promise, all were weak next to him. Weak like newborns, unable to handle a single blow from him. He broke their bodies as if they were made of straw.

He growls.

Not in pain, not in boredom, but in rage and in bother. Perhaps, just perhaps a worthy adversary had been in the group he fought, but if it was the case, he didn't have the chance to met him. He didn't get the chance to battle him one to one, to kill him himself and then take his head to bring it back to Arago's castle as a trophy, a symbol of victory and glory.

It bothers him that this hypothetical man might have been here, and that he might as well as fallen under the blows of a simple Youja or those of another Masho. It makes him feel as if they had stolen his victory, all and any of them.

He won, of course, and he never doubted he would, not with the yoroi on his side. But that might be the problem. The yoroi allowed him an easy victory over simple mortals.

So he won, but he won without perils.

The victory it brings him is tainted. For if the victory was total and absolute, it was a victory far to easy to take.

Glory should crown the ones who are victorious. Glory was supposed to come to him after annihilating the army of that Warlord his Master had wanted utterly destroyed.

But if it's the case…

Why, instead of the sweet honey taste of victory, can he only feels the bitter taste of defeat?

**End**


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